Workers will come up with ideas and improvements -- if the company lets them

Judson "Jud" Gostin founded Sensis Corp. in 1985 with six employees. Today, the company has 693 employees and plans to hire 70 more.

Gostin, a former General Electric executive in Syracuse, left that company after 27 years and patterned his new company after GE's military radar business. His first six employees were radar design engineers hired away from General Electric.

But over the years, Sensis has branched out into other lines of business, driven by employee innovation. The company's premier product, which helps air controllers monitor planes and other vehicles on the ground at airports, doesn't even use radar.

In 2006, Gostin recruited other business leaders to launch the Famous Entrepreneurs Series, which brings in speakers to promote entrepreneurship.

Gostin, 73, president and chief executive officer of Sensis, spoke recently to staff writer Tim Knauss. Here are excerpts from the interview:

Sensis has grown and done very well through innovation. In a general way, how do you do that?

You know, there's no huge secret. For the most part, what we do is try to get people to understand the business. (We) try to get people to understand what the vision is, what our financials are, what they need to be, how we're performing with respect to execution, what kind of markets look attractive, what kind of new customers we think we'd like to serve.

Probably the most important thing is for all employees to understand, what are the problems they need to solve?

So we are very open and candid with our employees about where we are, what our issues are. If we have a good year, they know it; if we have a bad year, they know it.

Once they understand the problems very well, then you empower them. You say, "Look, come up with good ideas. We want to hear them. We will seriously look at them, because we're counting on you guys to make us better."

How much has product innovation -- the development of new products -- contributed to Sensis' growth?

That's been the biggest part. You know, our biggest product is this multistatic dependent surveillance . . . which provides surveillance on and around the airport surface.

It's a terrific success for us. We basically own the airport surveillance business in the United States.

And that all happened when one of our guys said, "You know what, there's an emerging issue with accidents on and around the airport surface."

How close were you to that (airport) issue before you decided to undertake a solution?

We understood the marketplace. We understood the need. And we knew that a solution was important.

So the guys thought about it and they came up with a very innovative solution, called multistatic dependent surveillance. It had never been implemented before.

They said, "There is no (FAA) program to buy it right now, but if we build it they will come." So we spent our own R&D money.

That's sort of the No. 1 example of innovation. More recently, it's been taking place on the defense and security side, with issues that are arising in Iraq about threats to the troops from IEDs (improvised explosive devices.)

Again: Understand the need. Understand the solutions that are in place now. Understand the deficiencies in the solution. What can we develop that might be better?

We've been developing some stuff internally, and it's beginning to take hold now. So we think we may have a significant success on the personnel security side with some of these new products.

Does innovation require significant incentives, other that the company doing well? In other words, the guy who thought up the airport surveillance -- what did he get?

You know, the monetary incentive is not the most important thing. It isn't about the money. It's about, you know, "You did a hell of a job." It's about, you put your arm around him -- figuratively speaking, or sometimes literally -- and say, "Thank you very much. What you did is really important for the company."

. . . If we forestall (airport) collisions, you can imagine how good that makes people feel. And we do. Our equipment saves lots of lives on airports. And we think it will save lots of lives on the battlefield, as well.

How surprised have you been over the years at the directions the company has taken? What did you have in mind when you started in '85?

I was clueless -- you don't have to write that.

We came out of GE, when GE had the defense business. We were ground radar guys. So my mindset was, we're going to do radar, air-defense radar. I could never imagine that we would be so actively engaged in air traffic control. (That technology involves) a sensor, but it's not radar -- it's passive.

And we're into other things -- intensively into information processing. We have a (information) product that we sell airlines, called Aerobahn, which is another innovation.

How does being in Central New York affect Sensis?

It's a mixed blessing. It's hard to recruit. We have a bunch of job openings now. And it's hard to get 70 people to come from the outside to work here.

Because?

Syracuse is not viewed as an attractive place by people who have never lived here. That's the bad news.

The good news is, once people come here and they work here, they stay. They want to leave even less.

So the turnover is low, and turnover is even more expensive than hiring. So I don't say that it nets out as a negative. But the hiring is an issue. Once we get them here, it's great.

Why did you start Famous Entrepreneurs?

I'm old. And I care about the community.

We'll never be Silicon Valley or Raleigh-Durham, perhaps, but there's are lot of room between where we are and where they are in terms of economic development, in terms of entrepreneurship.

I just saw too little entrepreneurial sprit in the community. Too many companies are content with, "If we grow 2 percent to 3 percent this year, we'll be fine."

And it isn't because we don't have the skills. It isn't because we don't have the management know-how. We have all that.

What's lacking is the will. What's lacking is the desire and aspiration -- the entrepreneurial spirit. I just wanted to do something that would enflame that spirit.

The idea was to bring in business icons -- either successful CEOs or management gurus -- who would tell success stories, how companies have gone from good to great.